I wonder, who is it?

[lizblackdog]

There's a series of detective novels, featuring a character called Nick *something*. They're rather noir, published in the late eighties to early nineties. The author's male and English and they're set in London. The protagonist is a private detective who (I think) is an ex-copper who was fired for corruption - or something. He has a girlfriend in the early books who gets killed at some point in the series, and a preteen/teenaged daughter. Either his ex-wife or his daughter is named Hazel (I think). The books' titles are rock music references - I can't recall if they're actual song titles or just clear allusions to song titles. I'm fairly sure one of them is an Elvis Costello reference. The plots feature a lot of gangsters, guns, cocaine, nastiness, fast cars, adrenaline and angst for the protagonist.

Anyone out there know who I'm talking about? I've tried typing all the references I can remember into Google and come up with nothing, I spent an hour looking at Wikipedia's crime fiction section last night, and I also trawled through Amazon clicking on all the vaguely similar-themed crime books I could remember to see if the name came up on the "customers who bought this book also bought..." thing. No joy anywhere and I am now officially being driven out of my mind.

Help?

EDIT: I hate my brain. This has been driving me batshit for 24 hours. It magically popped into my brain five minutes after I posted this.

Comments

[il_mio_capitano]

I should've checked LJ a bit sooner!

[lizblackdog.livejournal.com]

Well, I did PM you... I just didn't feel like looking a fool on TrekBBS.

Still grateful though :)